Crunchyroll acquires video discovery site Redux

Anime streaming site Crunchyroll is snapping up some video discovery talent.

Redux, a startup focused on helping people find and watch interesting content on their TVs, announced today that it’s being acquired by Crunchyroll.

Redux raised around $8 million from investors since its founding in 2008. Terms of the Crunchyroll deal weren’t disclosed.

David McIntosh, Redux’s founder and president, tells me his team was actually considering a larger buyout offer from another company. But the team eventually decided to go with Crunchyroll because Redux’s technology could have a bigger impact on its content discovery.

As part of the deal, Redux will eventually shut down its service and connected TV apps, and its discovery technology will be integrated into Crunchyroll. Given the dozens of new anime series launching every year, the addition of new discovery technology could help viewers find anime they’d like to watch more easily.

McIntosh won’t be joining the Redux team at Crunchyroll, however. He revealed that Riffsy, the social sharing service for animated GIF-like images that Redux launched last year, was quietly spun out earlier this year as an independent company. McIntosh is now leading the Riffsy team, which has under $1 million in new funding from new investors.

While McIntosh couldn’t say much about Riffsy’s growth over the past year, he noted that the site’s daily active users grew 10x over the past six months. He was also surprised that Riffsy is now seeing more mobile traffic than desktop visitors.